Purity of Heart (10 page)

But this double-minded person is not so easily recognizable on earth. He does not will the Good for the sake of reward, for then he would have become obvious in his aspiration or in his despair. He does not will the Good out of fear of punishment, for then he would have become obvious in his cowardice, in his shunning of punishment, or in his despair, when he was not able to avoid it. No, he wishes to sacrifice all, he fears nothing, only he will not sacrifice himself in daily self-forgetfulness. This he fears to do.

The double-minded man stands at a parting of the ways, and sees there two apparitions: the Good, and the Good in its victory, or even in its victory through him. This latter is presumptuousness, but even the first two apparitions are not wholly the same. In eternity they are the same, but not in time. And they must be kept apart. The Good so wills it. The Good puts on the slowness of time as a poor garment, and in keeping with this change of dress one who serves it must be clothed in the insignificant figure of the unprofitable servant. With the eye of his senses he is not permitted to see the Good in victory. Only with the eye of faith can he strive after its eternal victory. Therein lies his double-mindedness. For as there is a double-mindedness which divides up the nature of the Good which the Good has united for all eternity: so is his double-mindedness of that sort that unites what the Good in time has set apart. The one double-minded person forgets the Eternal and on that account misuses time, the other misuses eternity.

4. Before finally leaving the subject of double-mindedness for a similar examination of purity,
the talk should at least touch upon that versatile form of double-mindedness: the double-mindedness of weakness
as it appears in the common things of real life;
upon the fact that the person who only wills the Good up to a certain degree is double-minded.

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this is the way all double-mindedness expresses itself in relation to the Good, in that it wills the Good only up to a certain degree. But what has been set forth above, what of double-mindedness might perhaps be spoken of as its deceptive transactions in the “big,” still had a certain semblance of unity, and of inner consistency, in so far as it was one single thing that was betrayed into one-sidedness, yet this one-sidedness, however strange it may seem, was precisely the double-mindedness in that one-sided person.

It is otherwise with the transactions of daily life, for they are not in the “big.” It is rare in daily life, to see anyone who wills some perverse thing with fixed consistency and effort. The transactions of daily life are made in the little things so that double-mindedness presents a much greater diversity within the “individual.”

A merchant who deals in only one kind of ware is a rare sight, and so is that double-mindedness which has a certain unreal unity. A merchant generally deals in different
wares, and double-mindedness, too, is generally a number of different things. On that account the false road is harder to detect than that clear-cut one. Nay, the false roads cross each other and the right road in the most different ways and the “individual” shares in this crossing in an equally varied way. To be sure his life is distinguishable as falling within double-mindedness. But it is not easy to designate it any more closely, because within this double-mindedness, he is not at one with himself in anything definite, but is tossed about in vacillation by every breeze. For he learns and learns and yet never comes to a knowledge of truth.
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Or if he comes almost to it, then he quickly turns further and further away the more he learns of this confused and confusing instruction. In preference to the earlier double-mindedness, this has the Good on its side, in that it wills the Good, even though weakly; and in that it is without the obstinacy that marked the previously mentioned double-mindedness. But upon occasion weakness may be just as incurable.

This double-mindedness is difficult to speak of because it approximates both the one and the other, and because it alters itself continually, changing so swiftly that it may have transformed itself several times before the talk had hardly finished describing a single expression. It plays about gaily not only in all possible colors, but there is not even any law for this play of colors that blends colors and color relations in ever new confusion. Hence there is always something new under the sun—and yet the old double-mindedness persists. Indeed what makes it even more difficult to speak of, is that in daily life, where it is right at home, double-mindedness, within limits, keeps comparatively to itself, so that a double-minded person, by being a little less double-minded than the others, claims distinction even though his degree of difference is quite
within an essential sameness. Hence in the end it would seem as if that true eternal claim that demands purity of heart, by willing one thing, were done away with, as if it had been withdrawn from government, set away in retirement at such a distance from daily life that there simply could be no talk about it. For among the many-colored seething populace in the noise of the world from day to day and from year to year, there is no scrupulous check made as to whether a person wholly wills the Good if he has influence and might, runs a great business, is something in his own and in others’ eyes. “What frightfully niggardly pettiness,” one thinks, “to be so scrupulous!” One does not consider that there is any presumptuousness in what one has spoken. Nay, one drops the clever remark in passing and hurries on, while the remark also hurries on from mouth to mouth amid the many-colored seething populace. And in the rush of life, in trade and commerce from morning to night, there is no such scruple about whether a person wholly wills the Good, just so that in his business he is keen, not to say a “thief,” just so that he saves and piles up money, just so that he has a good reputation and by good fortune manages to avoid slander (for whether he actually is guilty or not is here of little importance, for neither he nor the world has time to look into that. Slander is merely a danger as an obstacle to his business). “To what purpose such a delay in the midst of busyness?” And in the world, it is always busy. Yes, it is entirely true that this is the way things look in the world, the way they seem in the world, and the way they must seem within the deceptive horizon of the temporal order. But in eternity it will make a tremendous difference whether a person was scrupulous or not.

And yet eternity is not like a new world, so that one
who had lived in time according to the ways of the time world and of the press of busyness, if he were to make a happy landing in eternity itself, could now try his luck in adopting the customs and practices of eternity. Alas, the temporal order and the press of busyness believe, that eternity is so far away. And yet not even the foremost professional theatrical producer has ever had all in such readiness for the stage and for the change of scenes, as eternity has all in readiness for time: all—even to the least detail, even to the most insignificant word that is spoken; has all in readiness in each instant—although eternity delays.

Oh, that this talk, far from detaining anyone who sincerely wills the Good, or calling anyone away from fruitful activity, might cause a busy man to pause. For this press of busyness is like a charm. And it is sad to observe how its power swells, how it reaches out seeking always to lay hold of ever-younger victims so that childhood or youth are scarcely allowed the quiet and the retirement in which the Eternal may unfold a divine growth. And suppose that busyness in its haste should make a concession, believing even in its superficial wisdom that there is something beneficial in having a busy man on hand who now and then hurriedly proclaims that higher reflection on life about willing the Good in truth. Alas, is this, then, the true relationship? Are almost all to be excused from that which every man should do for himself? But then for the sake of completeness is someone in the midst of busyness to be delegated the task of setting forth that higher claim—that higher claim, which, if by some means it could be satisfied, even if in feebleness and in imperfection, would command a man’s whole mind, his unrelenting industry, his best strength?

Thus in the midst of busyness, double-mindedness is to
be found. Just as the echo dwells in the woods, as stillness dwells in the desert, so double-mindedness dwells in the press of busyness. That the one who wills the Good only to a certain degree, that he is double-minded, that he has a distracted mind, a divided heart, scarcely needs to be pointed out. But the reason may need to be explained and set forth, why, in the press of busyness, there is neither time nor quiet to win the transparency that is indispensable if a man is to come to understand himself in willing one thing or even for a preliminary understanding of himself in his confusion. Nay, the press of busyness into which one steadily enters further and further, and the noise in which the truth continually slips more and more into oblivion, and the mass of connections, stimuli, and hindrances, these make it ever more impossible for one to win any deeper knowledge of himself. It is true, that a mirror has the quality of enabling a man to see his image in it, but for this he must stand still. If he rushes hastily by, then he sees nothing. Suppose a man should go about with a mirror in his possession which he does not take out, how should such a man get to see himself? In this fashion the busy man hurries on, with the possibility of understanding himself in his possession. But the busy man keeps on running and it never dawns upon him that this possibility which he has in his possession is rapidly fading from his memory. And yet one hardly dares say this to one of these busy ones, for however rushed he otherwise may be, yet upon occasion he has plenty of time for a multitude of excuses by the use of which he becomes worse than he was before: excuses whose wisdom is about the same as when a sailor believes that it is the sea, not the ship, that is moving.

One hardly dares say this to him, for however rushed he otherwise may be, yet upon occasion when in the company
of congenial spirits, he has ample time: “to rob the unripe fruit of ridicule of its wisdom,” in order to poke fun at the speaker as one of life’s incompetents, as a man whom the busy one in his cleverness ignores—from the exalted viewpoint of his excuses. Then, too, the general approval is everywhere upon the side of the busy one—everywhere, in the ever-increasing sum of the pressure of busyness, and in the swarming mass of excuses. For like a poisonous breath over the fields, like a mass of locusts over Egypt, so the swarm of excuses is a general plague, a ruinous infection among men, that eats off the sprouts of the Eternal. For with each one who is attacked, there is always just one more excuse for the next person. And while a person cannot, as a rule, prevent a sickness becoming more and more dangerous, more and more malignant, the more it attacks those around him, yet with excuses it is just the reverse. There the sickness seems to become milder and milder, the condition becomes more and more agreeable, the more persons there are attacked by it. And if we all agree that the wretched, stunted state of health of these excuses, is the highest of all, then there is no one to say anything to the contrary. Should there be an “individual” who could not feel easy about yielding, and who raised a strong objection to this widespread practice of excusing, alas, we have not yet heard all; for there is always one excuse held in reserve, that lies in wait at his door and demands of him, “What good does it do for a single individual to insist upon opposing this?” Hence once again with excuses it is even worse than with a virulent disease, for no one dies of a disease simply because others have died of it.

So the double-minded person, then, may have a feeling—a living feeling for the Good. If someone should speak of the Good, especially if it were done in a poetical fashion,
then he is quickly moved, easily stimulated to melt away in emotion. Suppose the world goes a little against him and then someone should tell him that God is love, that His love surpasses all understanding, encompassing in His Providence even the sparrow that may not fall to the earth without His willing it. If a person speaks in this way, especially in a poetical manner, he is gripped. He reaches after faith as after a desire, and with faith he clutches for the desired help. In the faith of this desire he then has a feeling for the Good. But perhaps the help is delayed. Instead of it a sufferer comes to him whom he can help. But this sufferer finds him impatient, forbidding. This sufferer must be content with the excuse, “that he is not at the moment in the spirit or the mood to concern himself about the sufferings of others as he himself has troubles.” And yet he imagines that he has faith, faith that there is a loving Providence who helps the sufferer, a Providence, who also uses men as his instruments. Possibly now the desired help comes. Again he quickly flares up with gratitude, basking in a soft conception of the loving Goodness of Providence. Now he thinks he has rightly grasped faith. Now it has been victorious in him over every doubt and every objection. Alas, and that other sufferer has been completely forgotten. What else is this condition if it is not double-mindedness! For suppose, after all, that there should be talk of objections to faith, of incidents and occurrences that seem as it were to cry out against the care of a loving Providence: then that other sufferer who with the excuse that by chance he was not in the mood was turned away sharply by the very one who could have helped him, that other sufferer is an even more powerful objection. But the double-minded one is wholly blind to the fact that at the very moment when he believes faith to have conquered in him, he has, precisely
by his action, refuted this conviction. Or is this not double-mindedness that thinks to have a conviction while by his own action a man contradicts it? Is this not, in truth, the sole proof that a man has a conviction: that his own life actually expresses it? Is this not the sole certainty: that one’s so-called conviction is not altered from moment to moment as a result of the different things that happen to one, things that momentarily alter a person and alter everything for a person so that today he has faith, and tomorrow he has lost it, and he gets it again day after tomorrow until something completely out of the ordinary happens, at which time he almost inevitably loses it, assuming that he has ever had it!